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| Traverse City poppies |
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| yes, this really is a white poppy! |
On our second day in Michigan, we celebrated our 40th
wedding anniversary. We were staying at
“Red Oaks,” a Boondockers Welcome* campsite in Mecosta. This was our first experience with
Boondocker’s Welcome, where we camped in the most interesting retired couple’s
lakeside cottage front yard. In fact,
that very day they took us on a tour of their nearby lakefront home. They are in the middle of a major remodeling
project in a Frank Lloyd Wright Eustonian style. Then, that evening they brought us some of
their homemade rhubarb crumble dessert and we all enjoyed visiting until after
11pm. Hopefully we’ll see them again in
the future and see the “finished product.”
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| camping at "Red Oaks" in Mecosta |
From Mecosta, we headed further north to Traverse City to
visit family and friends there. Also,
Traverse City ended up serving as our home base because from there we traveled
downstate to Milford for one day for a Jankowski family reunion. Seventy plus family members came to the
reunion and we had a wonderful, though short, time visiting with relatives that we hadn’t seen since the
last reunion three years ago.
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| us "Basil & Winnie Jankowski" decendents |
Sadly Joe
and Jess weren’t able to make it but Heather did and her Aunt Michele surprised
her with a big “Congratulations” cake for her recent graduation from the
Registered Nursing Program. We’re so
proud of her and happy to say the she is loving her first job as a Licensed
Registered Nurse.
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| Nurse Heather, RN |
Michigan has had a lot of rain and cooler than normal
temperatures for this time of year making everything a lush green with colorful
flowers in bloom everywhere making it seem like it was springtime instead of
summer. Once more, we were able to park
our trailer between Jerome’s sister and brother’s houses and we were backed up
only feet from Eileen’s incredibly fragrant lilac bush…..ahhhhhh, what an awesome smell!
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| Eileen's lilac bush |
Cherry Festival was starting the day we left
and we couldn’t have timed it better because the Thunderbirds were beginning to
practice for their airshow directly overhead and Carly was terrified like when
the Blue Angels were flying overhead in Tennessee.
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| Nick's peonies |
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| pretty purple flowers on one of our walks |
We left Traverse City without seeing everyone we wanted to
see but having thoroughly enjoyed our time there, especially extending the
reunion time somewhat with our immediate family. Our last stop as we headed south out of Michigan
was “Fermata,” our second Boondocker’s Welcome experience, just outside of
Chelsea. This time we stayed in a lovely
professional musicians (semi-retired) couple’s backyard. They invited us to bring our dinner up to
join them on their back porch and of course we said “yes.” Jerome’s cousin, Suzie, lives nearby and knew
their daughter, so she joined our group as well. What a wonderful way to spend an evening
outside.
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| camping at "Fermata" in Chelsea |
Finally, it was time to leave Michigan behind and start our
eastward journey towards the east coast.
Thank you for taking time to enjoy our trip a bit with
us. ‘Until next time,
Jerome & Jean (and of course, Carly, too)
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| Clematis on one of our Traverse City walks |
*Boondocker’s Welcome is an RV camping method where fellow RVers
offer free camping on their property, whether it is a spot on their 40-acre
woods or just a spot in their driveway.
Some offering water and electricity and some are just dry-camping
without any amenities. It’s sort of like
an air bnb for RVers.
It was great to see you at Kensington Metro Park. We should do the Jankowski reunion for a 3 day weekend next time.
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